Pink Grapefruit Tart, or Why You Should Boycott Creme Brulee Torches

When I was working in the pastry kitchen at my cooking school’s restaurant, we used to put out an insanely complicated dessert called a chiboust. There was lemon zest to candy, cherries to make into a boozy compote, shortbread to knead and bake into rounds–and all that was before we even got to the chiboust itself: a mousse-like mixture of three of pastry’s most (to me, at any rate) intimidating components: meringue, pastry cream and gelatin. Once the chiboust was assembled on its shortbread base and surrounded with its various garnishes, we would dust it with confectioner’s sugar and “brulee” the hell out of it with an industrial-grade propane torch in one hand, twirling the base of a flameproof cake stand in the other. It came out looking like this:

I started off being very frightened of the foot-long torch. But by the end of my first night using it, I was, if anything, a little too comfortable with it, and apt to have animated conversations while holding the open jet of flame in my hand.

A propane torch costs $15 at a hardware store. Cookware stores will try to sell you a purpose-built crème brûlée torch for twice that, and the little things are so inefficient that you will burn your finger on the switch and melt your icing sugar into a pool of syrup before you get that crackly glaze you’re looking for. As I found out two nights ago when I borrowed my friend’s to brulee the top of my pink grapefruit tart. I think the expensive little tool must be useful for two-ounce ramekins, handy for a food stylist trying to crisp up patches of pasty skin on a Cornish hen, and exceptional at lighting a cigarette in a rainstorm. Nine-inch tarts, however, should be the province of welding torches or a preheated broilers.

Last week I went to a friend’s house and baked some mini lemon meringue tarts. Baking at other people’s houses is so ideal. I get the use of their better-equipped kitchens and all the therapeutic benefits of baking, with none of the panic arising from having seven lemon meringue tarts sitting in my fridge, demanding to be eaten: I bake, clean the kitchen, sample a single tart, and leave.

If you’re an acidity freak like me, the raison d’être of a lemon meringue pie is the lemon curd filling. I could pass on the meringue part entirely, if the lemon filling were not quite so bracing without it. So I decided to try my hand at a custard filling with a mellower citrus, replacing the billowy meringue topping with a more conservative layer of white chocolate between crust and filling. I knew that presenting the pink grapefruit curd stripped of meringue would make for a runny tart, so I upped the starch to get a more solid, sliceable filling. A last-minute dusting of icing sugar, quickly bruleed (or not so quickly, if you’re using a torch the size of a Pez dispenser), makes the whole thing look a bit less, well, yellow.

I served it with pink grapefruit supremes and candied zest. The party’s hostess told me privately that she thought it lacked zing, but, to me, the toned-down citrus character was precisely the point: I was aiming for a fruity dessert that didn’t smell like a natural disinfectant. I would consider boiling the grapefruit juice down by a third, or including a few strips of grapefruit zest in the simmering stage to intensify flavour, but the pink grapefruit is not meant to mimic lemon.

With my tart recipe, I have included a method for candying any kind of citrus zest. The recipe also presumes a nine-inch, blind-baked pie crust, because I can’t tell you anything about pie crust other than that I hate sweeping flour off the floor and that I think Pillsbury’s refrigerated, pre-rolled pie dough is an absolute godsend.

Pink Grapefruit And White Chocolate Tart

INGREDIENTS

9-inch pie shell, baked

2 oz white chocolate, coarsely chopped

1 cup pink grapefruit juice
1 cup water
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cornstarch
1/2 cup sugar

6 egg yolks
2 oz butter, cubed

confectioner’s sugar for dusting

METHOD

1. Melt the chopped chocolate in a double boiler. Spread the melted chocolate over the base of a pre-baked pie shell. Refrigerate to solidify.

2. Meanwhile, combine all the remaining ingredients except egg yolks and butter in large saucepan over medium heat. Whisk thoroughly until mixture is smooth, and continue whisking until the consistency is thickened but pourable. Remove from heat.

3. Add in the egg yolks one by one, whisking rapidly, and then incorporate the cubed butter. Return to a low heat, and stir constantly with a wooden spoon until mixture is the consistency of mayonnaise. Remove from heat and transfer grapefruit curd to a bowl to cool.

4. Once the filling has reached room temperature, spread it evenly inside the tart shell.

5. If desired, right before serving, dust the tart with confectioner’s sugar and brulee under a preheated broiler or a torch until sugar caramelizes in spots.

Candied Citrus Zest

METHOD

1. Peel citrus fruit lengthways with a Y-shaped vegetable peeler to get the longest, widest strips possible.

2. Finely julienne the peel.

3. Blanch the peel three times (to remove bitterness): cover with cold water in a saucepan and bring to the boil; drain, and repeat twice.

4. Place the blanched peel in a saucepan and cover with cold water. For every cup of cold water, add one cup of sugar. Bring to a boil and simmer gently until water and sugar have formed a syrup. The amount of time will vary with the quantities, but when the bubbles are thick and slow, the liquid is syrupy and its level has sunk almost down to the peel, remove from heat and drain.

5. Toss the candied peel with additional sugar and leave to cool.

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